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Lewis vs Radcliffe
Horror vs Terror Lewis is associated with horror and Radcliffe with terror. Horror is where bad things actually happen: rape, murder, ect. In terror, threats become actual events. In horror things seem to be more graphic: supernatural mixed with the evil intentions of the antagonist. The Monk is described as horror because Antonia is raped and murdered at the end of the novel by her brother, a monk. In The Italian the threat is present but nobody actually dies. Male vs Female Gothic Gothic men have femine qualities. In The Monk, Ambrosio is worried about his virtue and, in that way, feminized. Matilda takes control of the situation because Ambrosio does not have knowledge or experience. This makes Matilda seem masculine. Lorenzo and Raymond, the purported heroes, are never around when needed to be. They are needed to save the heroine but are sick in bed instead. The Male Gothic is a category associated with novels such as The Monk that displays horror. The Female Gothic is a category associated with novels such as The Italian that displays terror. Because it was seen as transgressive for women to write, much less to write about rape, murder, and incest, it is probably not surprising that the two categories (Male and Female Gothic) line up with the sex of the authors. World views differ between the two. The Female Gothic suggests a kinder and more just world. Where as, the horrifying outcomes, even for the innocent and the worthy, in novels like The Monk suggest a world where evil triumphs, justice is rare, and the powerful patriarchs and priests create that injustice: the horror. So, if horror novels (Male Gothic) shows the injustice of the powerful, they can be read as radical because they suggest that something is dramatically wrong with the world as it is. Therefore, some argue that the Female Gothic is conservative because the good are rewarded and indeed prosper, gaining wealth and status and often discovering that they are aristocrats themselves. This would uphold a conservative worldview. In this decade of the French Revolution, directly stated radical views or plots would have been dangerous and were rejected by society. The ideas and philosophies animated by the French Revolution appear in these texts indirectly; therefore, like ghosts. So we can read a more radical tenor/attitude in Radcliffe's The Italian ''than its plot would seem to support. This would accord with critic's claims that the gothic genre allowed the indirect and subterainian expression of ideas that would have otherwise been culturally unacceptable. So we must be careful in making assumptions about the political implications of male and female gothic. A scene in chapter one of ''The Italian describes how Ellena supports her family with fancy embrodiery symbolizing her "virtuous independence". She is afraid of being shunned for her labor and the''' narrator tells us''' , "That she could have endured poverty but not contempt" which tells us that the narrator rejects the "narrow prejudices of the world around her." Radcliffe, embracing the flourishing ideals linked to the American Revolution and indivualism, condemns a rigid class heirarchy and women's traditional role as leisured "fools". Category:Miscellaneous